Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Murphy says 'We Will Transform Scottish Politics'

Angus Macleod and Magnus Linklater, writing in today's Times, report that Jim Murphy is promising that Labour would give the Scottish Parliament 'radical' new tax powers within a year if they were re-elected.

“We will legislate early in the first year of the next Parliament,” he said. “It would be in the first legislative pogramme of a fourth term.” Both the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, he said, were “signed up” to the timetable.

“It will be enormously radical,” Mr Murphy continued. “MSPs will be making the big decisions every year [that] they do not even discuss at the moment ... [such as] what should the tax rate be in Scotland. That will transform politics in Scotland and give the Scottish Parliament the kind of accountability it hasn’t had in the first ten years of devolution. They will have to decide how they spend the money they have asked the Scottish people for.”

Mr Murphy is certainly ensuring he has a high profile in the press these days. Of course he has little else to do it seems. I note in the article he desperately tries to substantiate his position by stating it had been an error for his predecessors, such as Des Browne, to be asked to combine the Scottish Secretary's role with another major Cabinet post.

Then he continues to say 'the labour government got its handling of Mr Salmond and the SNP government "wrong" after the Nationalist election triumph in 2007.'

"They were already victors. We bashed them around the head and turned them into victims. It was the perfect storm for them of victory and victimhood.

"We [had] allowed Nationalism to become as attractive as patriotism. All Nationalists are patriots but not all patriots are Nationalists."

If I wasn't so cynical I'd have tears in my eyes right now. Keep going Mr Murphy. At this rate by the time election day arrives the Scottish public will be so sick of seeing and hearing you they'll vote for anyone but your party.

Of Alex Salmond he says," I think he loves Scotland as much as I do. I think that's his greatest strength. Other than that I don't really know him. I don't know him as a human being, I know him as a politician."

Ah, so there were have it from the utterances of Jim Murphy. Politicians aren't human beings. He includes himself surely. I'll leave it to you to decide if he's smart or stupid.

'Handling' is an interesting choice of word isn't it? That's what these people do; they 'handle' the rest of us. That's their attitude neatly exposed in a word. They are psychiatric nurses in their own estimation whose job is to handle awkward types who disagree with them or otherwise don't know what's good for them, none more awkward than the electorate.

Morning Polaris. I thought there for a minute you were suggesting Murphy was an alien but after a a second read I now understand. Time consuming indeed. Remember Mr Murphy is a very busy man looking after Scotland full-time.